Medical Leave Given to Public Healthcare Workers Contracting COVID-19 and Measures in Place to Ensure Healthcare System Not Compromised

Mr Yip Hon Weng asked the Minister for Health with the recent surge in cases of the COVID-19 Omicron variant (a) whether any medical leave is given to public healthcare workers (i) who contract COVID-19, including time off from work for full recovery, and (ii) to care for affected family members; (b) if so, what are the respective numbers of days of medical leave given; and (c) what measures are in place to ensure that the healthcare system is not compromised when affected healthcare workers are on medical leave.

Public healthcare workers follow the same MOM advisory on work and leave arrangements for employees who test positive for COVID-19.

Under these guidelines, those who are assessed by a doctor to be mildly symptomatic and of low risk will be given a 5-day medical certificate (MC) and advised to self-isolate at home for 72 hours. At the end of 72 hours, they can perform a self-test ART and choose to return to work if they are asymptomatic and the self-test result is negative. If they continue to test positive, they have to continue to self-isolate until they obtain a negative self-test result or until Day 7 (if vaccinated) or Day 14 (if unvaccinated) where Day 1 is the date of the first positive ART test. In addition, healthcare workers would be in appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) for their work setting and follow the necessary workplace safe management measures. Healthcare institutions may deploy these recovered healthcare workers in lower-risk settings to minimise direct contact with seniors and vulnerable patients, or work in COVID-19 settings where there is no risk of reinfection.

While the majority of those who are infected are physically well or have mild symptoms, public healthcare workers who need to care for an affected child or elderly parent in self-isolation will be allowed to work from home (WFH). If work from home is not possible, staff may be granted unrecorded paid leave for the duration where the child or elderly parent is unwell.

To ensure that our healthcare system is not compromised, MOH is working closely with the public healthcare clusters to monitor the staff strength in each institution. Institutions may also adjust their internal manpower deployment across departments where feasible, depending on workload and staffing needs. MOH is also working in close partnership with private healthcare providers to help augment the capacity of our public healthcare system.